World History Political Science

Villains of All Nations explores the "Golden Age" of Atlantic piracy (1716-1726) and the infamous generation whose images underlie our modern, romanticized view of pirates.

From the invention of writing around 3,300 BC, the world has mostly been ruled by kings. Though called by different names: Pharaohs, Chieftains, Emperors, Caesars, Sultans, Khans, Maharajas, Monarchs, and Dictators, they act the same. Power, like gravity, concentrates into the hand of one person, who rewards his friends and punishes his enemies. In socialist and communist countries, too, though professing equality, they inevitably end up being ruled by dictators.

In this magisterial book, Roy Jenkins' unparalleled command of the political history of Britain and his own high-level government experience combine in a narrative account of Churchill's astounding career that is unmatched in its shrewd insights, its unforgettable anecdotes, the clarity of its overarching themes, and the author's nuanced appreciation of his extraordinary subject.

For many centuries, the world of Islam was at the forefront of human achievement: the foremost military and economic power in the world, the leader in the arts and sciences of civilization. Christian Europe, a remote land beyond its northwestern frontier, was seen as an outer darkness of barbarism and unbelief from which there was nothing to learn or to fear.

Presenting an aspect of American history that has never been fully told, Doris Kearns Goodwin describes how the isolationist and divided United States of 1940 was unified under the extraordinary leadership of Franklin Roosevelt to become, only five years later, the preeminent economic and military power in the world. Using diaries, interviews, and White House records, Goodwin paints an intimate, detailed portrait not only of the presidency during wartime but also of Franklin and Eleanor themselves.

The Palestinian Delusion is unique in situating the Israeli/Palestinian conflict within the context of the global jihad that has found renewed impetus in the latter portion of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. Briskly recounting the tumultuous history of the "peace process", Robert Spencer demonstrates that the determination of diplomats, policymakers, and negotiators to ignore this aspect of the conflict has led the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the world down numerous blind alleys. This has often only exacerbated, rather than healed, this conflict.

The problem isn’t that liberal authors present their opinions or interpretations of history from an obvious left-wing bias. Students learn, for example, that the Founding Fathers were elitists who drafted the Constitution in order to protect their own economic interests; that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation only because he needed black soldiers; that racist groups such as the KKK represented our society in the early twentieth century.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a defining moment of the modern era. Its success unleashed a wave of Islamist fervor across the Middle East and signaled a sharp decline in the appeal of Western ideologies in the Islamic world. Michael Axworthy takes listeners through the major periods in Iranian history over the last 30 years: the overthrow of the old regime and the creation of the new one; the Iran-Iraq war; the reconstruction era following the war; the reformist wave led by Mohammed Khatami; and the present day, in which reactionaries have re-established control.

After winning the war for independence from Great Britain, the 13 adopted the Articles of Confederation as their system of government. However, the Articles proved to be ineffective, and only a few short years after gaining its independence, the young country was headed for fracture and failure. In the summer of 1787, 12 of the states (Rhode Island excepted) sent delegates to Philadelphia in a last-ditch effort to fix the Articles. But it soon became clear that the problems facing the young country were too great for the Articles of Confederation to address, even in an amended form. Thus, the delegates created a new Constitution.

As North Korea's State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongyang seemed safe and secure. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 dawned what Francis Fukuyama called “The End of History.” Three decades later, Jim Sciutto said on CNN’s air as the Ukraine war began, that we are living in a “1939 moment.” History never ended—it barely paused—and the global order as we have known it is now gone. Great powers are reinvigorated and determined to assert dominance on the world stage. And as it escalates, this new order will affect everyone across the globe.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates made history and changed its course through seven legendary match-ups between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Illinois senatorial race. Although he lost the election, Lincoln's gift for oratory and his anti-slavery stance made him a nationally known figure, and led to his election to the presidency in 1860. Never before presented in audio, these debates and great statesmen are brought to life by narrators Richard Dreyfuss and David Strathairn.

How to Win an Election is an ancient Roman guide for campaigning that is as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines. In 64 BC when idealist Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest orator, ran for consul (the highest office in the Republic), his practical brother Quintus decided he needed some no-nonsense advice on running a successful campaign.

Socialism was man's most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with a doctrine claiming to ground itself in "science". Each failure to create societies of abundance or give birth to "the New Man" inspired more searching for the path to the promised land: revolution, communes, social democracy, communism, fascism, Arab socialism, African socialism. None worked, and some exacted a staggering human toll. Then, after two centuries of wishful thinking and bitter disappointment, socialism imploded in a fin de siecle drama of falling walls and collapsing regimes.

This great question of Pearl Harbor - what did we know and when did we know it? - has been argued for years. But no investigator has ever been able to prove that foreknowledge of the attack existed at the highest levels. Until now.

If you like Day of Deceit, try Trapped at Pearl Harbor and vintage audio of FDR's Day of Infamy Speech.

The ascension of Vladimir Putin - a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB - to the presidency of Russia in 1999 should have been a signal that the country was headed away from democracy. Yet in the intervening years - as America and the world's other leading powers have continued to appease him - Putin has grown into not only a dictator but a global threat. With his vast resources and nuclear weapons, Putin is at the center of a worldwide assault on political liberty.

In light of the intertwining logics of military competition and economic interdependence at play in US-China relations, Trading with the Enemy examines how the United States has balanced its potentially conflicting national security and economic interests in its relationship with the People's Republic of China (PRC). To do so, Hugo Meijer investigates a strategically sensitive yet under-explored facet of US-China relations: the making of American export control policy on military-related technology transfers to China since 1979.

The first great war correspondent of the Middle Ages, Jean Froissart chronicled events during the period of English-French rivalry known as the Hundred Years War. Drawing on personal experience and far-ranging travel, Froissart takes you to the front lines of war for interviews with the combatants in such historic struggles as the Siege of Calais (1347) and the Battle of Poitiers (1356), as well the birth and death of England's King Richard II, and more.

A stolen US army drone. A shrinking oasis in the Sahara Desert. A secret stash of deadly chemicals. Each is a threat to the stability of the world but individually are problems that can be overcome. In the diplomatic arena though, everyone will have a different way of dealing with such a threat. And when those in charge disagree and refuse to back down, it will kick off an international chain reaction with potentially catastrophic consequences: a world edging closer to war....

The American presidency is in trouble. It has become overburdened, misunderstood, almost impossible to do. “The problems in the job unfolded before Donald Trump was elected, and the challenges of governing today will confront his successors”, writes John Dickerson. After all, the founders never intended for our system of checks and balances to have one superior Chief Magistrate, with Congress demoted to “the little brother who can’t keep up”.